


Tension Release

by Arazsya



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pillow Fights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:06:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22608241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya
Summary: Following Prentiss' siege, Martin spends his first night in the Archives.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Jonathan Sims & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker
Comments: 6
Kudos: 101
Collections: The Magnus Archives Rare Pairs 2020





	Tension Release

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doomcountry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcountry/gifts).



Martin isn’t sure how he’s supposed to feel. Relief, he’d appreciate. Jon had explained to him all the different ways that the room would be safe, so it’s not like it would be out of the blue. Fear, he expects, would still make sense. Even if Prentiss isn’t knocking on his door anymore, it’s not as if she’s _gone_. She’s still out there, somewhere, and if she is, then god only knows how many of the rest of the things from the statements are. Frustration, perhaps, he could cope with, at himself ending up in that situation in the first place.

Whatever it is that’s right, he doesn’t seem to be getting it. He’s just tired. Bone tired. Stares at the time and it trickles between o’clock and twenty past and quarter to between his blinks, for all that he’s aware of it changing. No longer an active participant in his own existence.

He focuses, from time to time, enough to tell himself that it’s over now. That he can relax, lie down, shut his eyes and go to sleep. The mattress isn’t comfortable, but he’s not equating every shift of it under his weight to something squirming beneath the fabric. He’s not catching a faint drift of that musty odour every other breath.

Yet still, he doesn’t do it. Too weary to sleep, perhaps, or maybe there’s enough fear left over in some unchecked corner of his head to keep him up. It should be so simple. Get up, lock the door, turn out the light. But it seems continents away, and his brain can’t seem to send any impulses to his limbs to get it done.

Maybe he should try something else. He _wants_ to do something other than keep scratching at the concept of sleep like a dog that doesn’t understand it’s been shut out. Just none of what comes to mind. Still too close to becoming nothing more than one himself to work on a statement, would end up wondering whose it would have been. Which of his neighbours would have been unlucky enough to notice the smell, or whether he’d stumble out into the street like Harriet Lee, and find some stranger to infect.

“Hey.”

Martin starts so hard that he stumbles to his feet, nearly falling in his effort to wheel around, his balance stable as a kite in a storm.

Tim leans back a little, stretching his legs out ahead of him, hooks his hands behind his head, the picture of relaxation. So utterly unthreatening he’d probably gone to an effort to seem that way.

“How long have you been–”

“About five minutes.” Tim smiles, lets one arm swing dismissively around. “I did ask if you minded, you didn’t say anything, so I just figured you were fine with it.”

“I thought you went home?” Martin manages to steady himself against one of the shelves, and does what he can to look like it’s not the only thing keeping him upright.

“I went for coffee,” Tim corrects him, mild, easy, like it’s just another day at the office. “And then, well, it’s a long way home, I got caught up filing and it’s late, so, here I am.” 

“Is it?”

“What?”

“A long way home.”

Tim glances down, covers the broadening of his smile by reaching down, taking a takeaway cup from a carrier on the floor, and holding it out towards him.

“Tea?” he asks.

Martin takes it, holds it in front of his chest. It feels almost defensive, like the warmth of it can ward off whatever weirdness Tim’s got into his head, any remaining memories of the worms, that last text on Jon’s phone. He doesn’t mean it like that. Just doesn’t want to spill it and doesn’t trust his hands not to shake.

“Anyway,” Tim says. “I was thinking maybe I could crash with you tonight. If that’s all right. Don’t sweat it if not, I have other options.”

“Why?” It comes out more sharply than Martin intends, but it’s been a long two weeks, and he can’t mask it. He’s sure there can’t be anything to Tim’s explanation – he doesn’t usually work that late. Finishes his tasks, of course, is diligent about it, no complaints from Jon, but he always seems to have something to look forward to, at the end of the day. “You don’t – you don’t do this.”

“Didn’t know this was an option.” Tim gestures around at the room, and from the angle of his wrist, Martin might almost have taken it to be a five-star hotel, rather than a dusty basement room with barely enough floor space left to turn in a circle. “I mean, I hardly knew there was a bed in here, did I? Usually in here is just, I don’t know, files everywhere.”

It’s not a good excuse. Martin believes it about as much as the last one, but if Tim doesn’t want to say, then Tim doesn’t want to say, and he’s too tired to push the point for something like this. Trusts Tim not to be a dick about things and to be firm enough that trying to get the truth out of him would be like trying to open a crypt with a spoon.

He sits back down next to Tim with a sigh, and takes a sip of his tea. It’s not quite right, and far from hot enough, but that’s hardly unexpected, and it’s better than nothing. The warmth of it fills out in his chest, and he tries to take comfort in it.

“So, any plans?” Tim asks, leaning down again to retrieve what Martin assumes is a coffee.

“What?”

“To go get some stuff.” Tim’s hands shift as he talks, the cup shifting to an alarming angle and back again. “Clothes. That sort of thing.”

“I… I can’t go back.” Martin mumbles it into the lid of his tea, isn’t even sure it’s audible until Tim replies. “My flat…”

“No, no, not there. New things. Phone. I have an old one you could borrow, if you like, until you can get that sorted.”

Martin blinks, and his focus hazes off into the middle distance again. The conversation feels odd. Everyday, real world concerns, pressing their way into the edge of his nightmare. Things he hadn’t realised he was allowed to think about.

“Food,” Tim adds. “Have you eaten?”

There had been a leftover sandwich from the cafeteria earlier, soggy and unconvincing lettuce hanging out over the side of bread that had slightly the wrong texture. But it hadn’t been canned peaches, and it had been enough.

“Maybe once you’re settled,” Tim goes on. “We could get that old television with the VHS player for an evening.”

“The one from Artefact Storage?”

“Fuck no. Research has one that isn’t cursed. I’m thinking, quiet night in, order some pizza. The library might have some videos still, or maybe Sasha can bring something.”

“Are…” Martin frowns, struggling to sort through all the practicalities that Tim’s been whirling through. “Are you planning to be staying over a lot?”

“Not necessarily, but, you know, when your colleague gets stalked by worms, you need a bit of decompression time.” Tim puts his coffee down again, peers into Martin’s face, still half-hidden by his tea. “I think it’d probably be good for all of us to do something not terrifying.”

Martin takes another sip. Still feels not quite right, like he’s a rat being gently ushered through a maze, but his bones are too heavy to do anything except follow every turn and assume there’s something good at the end of it.

“If you think it would help,” he ventures.

“Great!” Tim declares, scooping his phone from his pocket, and starting to type. He grins up at Martin for a moment, and then his attention’s all on his texting. “I’ll let Sasha know.”

“Isn’t it a bit late?”

“She’ll see it in the morning.” He flips the case over again, done with it. “Have to get a groupchat going before you change your mind.”

Martin hums, and swallows some more tea. He can just about make out Tim slipping his phone away, using the action to cover it when he glances over at Martin, a little more assessment in it this time – everything before had been aimed to disarm, put him at ease.

“Why are you still up, then?” he asks, the question carefully neutral.

“Can’t sleep,” Martin admits. “If you need the bed, I can go and…” He’s not sure _what_ he can go and do, exactly. Even if he could work, Jon would probably be even less pleased than usual with anything he could produce in his current state. Martin’s inconvenienced him enough for one week – for the whole year, probably.

“Nah.” Tim reaches past Martin to pick up the pillow, squashing it idly between his hands. Martin finds his attention sticking on the movement of his fingers, pressing into the fabric like he’s playing an instrument. He turns his eyes away, trying not to stare. It’s not as if he’s not used to Tim talking with his hands, and this is hardly any different. “You look like you’ve been hit by a bus.”

“… thank you?”

“Not really a compliment.” Tim rolls his shoulders, smooth and comfortable. “Not _not_ a compliment either. Observation. I guess you must still be kind of tense.”

Martin doesn’t _feel_ tense. He knows tense, is familiar with it, the way he’d gone rigid at every one of Prentiss’ knocks, his muscles so overworked that they’d been on the edge of cramp for hours. But it makes more sense than being too tired to sleep, which he can’t even explain to himself.

“Yeah,” he says. “Maybe–”

The pillow hits him on the top of his head, bounces off again under the force of its impact. It’s not hard, doesn’t hurt, is just enough to scatter the rest of Martin’s sentence before his throat can form it. He opens and closes his mouth, utterly unable to find anything that even resembles a word. Tim catches his eyes, looking at him brightly from behind the pillow, which he starts to waggle towards Martin’s face again.

Martin bats it away, but Tim still manages to dart it around to glance it off his elbow.

“Tim, what are you _doing_?” he demands, sets his tea down before Tim can spill it.

“Pillow fight.” Tim’s expression slips into something with far more concentration than can possibly be warranted, and he starts to sway slightly from side to side. “No sleepover is complete without one.”

“There’s only one pillow,” Martin points out, leaning back a little, unable to keep the frown off his face. At this point he feels like he needs one just to stay upright.

“Then I’m winning,” Tim says. This time, the pillow bats up against the underside of Martin’s chin, still gentle.

Martin grabs for it, and Tim pulls it back out of his way, nearly rolling completely over to keep it from him. He laughs, and Martin can feel the echo of it in his chest, the slightest of loosenings. Nothing mean-spirited there – even when they’d only just been assigned to the Archives, there had never been anything like that from Tim – and nothing dangerous.

With his second snatch, he manages to get hold of the pillow, wraps a fist into it, refuses to let go. Tim shoves against his shoulder, and he falls sideways, thumping down onto the mattress. Tim leans over him, lunging for the pillow when Martin tries to move it out of his reach.

For a second, their faces are a little too close, and Martin freezes. Tim stops when he does, his hand resting against the edge of the pillow, directly over him.

Martin knows, on an objective level, that Tim is hot. It’s something he accepts, had done from the moment he’d seen him, and thought no more about. He also knows that Tim is so far out of his league that he wouldn’t even get to watch the televised matches. But Tim isn’t moving either, and all his attention seems to be on Martin.

“Feeling better?” he asks, his eyes on Martin’s and so close that Martin can make out the patterns in his irises. Better to look there, he thinks, than at Tim’s lips, and think about how easy and how hard it would be to kiss him. Maybe he could count Tim’s eyelashes, and not wonder about where Tim’s gaze is going, as it starts to cant down.

“Um,” Martin breathes. He does, he thinks. Doesn’t trust himself to nod without accidentally head-butting Tim. He wants to say, but his throat won’t work. Tim’s mouth curves up at the edges, another smile but not one that Martin was supposed to be looking at. He thinks Tim might be moving closer, doesn’t trust himself to judge it, wonders if he should close his eyes.

The door opens. The noise of it is like a gunshot against Martin’s consciousness – he tries to scramble up, almost knocks his head into Tim’s anyway, but his arm tangles in the bedsheet, and he falls back down again with a sigh of springs.

Tim straightens up with no trouble, and from this angle, Martin can see that he’s a little flushed, his hair artfully ruffled.

“Jon!” he says, like that’s a totally natural thing for their boss to walk in on.

“Tim,” Jon says, as composed as always. Martin wants to cringe down into the mattress, shrink until he’s a creature of dust motes that will never be seen again. All he can do is pull the pillow across his chest like a shield. “Martin?”

“Um,” Martin says again.

“What – er – hm.” Jon pauses, seems to reassess, and then carries on, unruffled again. “I just thought I should come and make sure you were settling in okay.”

“Oh.” Martin crosses his arms over the pillow, one corner of his brain snapping at him to put it down. “Um, yes, thanks? Tim is…”

“Helping,” Tim offers, somehow still completely at ease and impossible to deny.

“Right.” Jon’s ever-present frown deepens, or maybe it’s just Martin’s angle on it changing. “So… you’re all right, then?”

“Yes,” Martin repeats, tries to sound less uncertain about it this time. “Thank you.”

Jon nods, almost to himself, and starts to back out of the room. Then he stops for a moment, and something seems to shift in his face – it must be the exhaustion, or the dim light, or the trauma, but Martin might almost have called it _fond_.

“If you need it,” he says. “There’s another pillow in the box under the bed.”

He’s gone again, closing the door with a careful click, before Martin can process that enough to determine how to react to it. Then Tim’s looking at him again, expression already dancing towards a laugh. Martin wants to return it, wants to race him for the other pillow, wants to find his way back to the moment before Jon had interrupted.

Instead, there’s a sudden pulse of exhaustion through his skull, and he finds himself starting to sink back down. Tim says something, his voice a pleasant, gentle thing, but Martin can’t focus enough to get any words from it to stay in his brain.

He takes the pillow from Martin’s unresisting grip, and puts it back down onto its proper place. There’s a hand on Martin’s shoulder, guiding him down, and he goes, harder than he means to. He’s vaguely aware, even as his eyes slide shut, of the shift of Tim’s weight against the mattress – gone for a moment, a faint scratching as he tries to figure out which way locks the door, and then back again, settling down next to him, at as considered a distance as he can manage on the cot.

The last of whatever had been keeping Martin awake coils away, no longer needing to clutch quite so tightly at his thoughts. He’s not sure he’s ever found it easier to sleep than in that moment.


End file.
